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RELATIONSHIP
BASED STUDENT MINISTRIES
By:
Don Bennett
Youth
Pastor – Oakridge Bible Chapel,
Oakville
Ontario
I
know the title does not sound revolutionary, but I feel it is extremely
important and often over looked. I remember working on a test in Community
College about learning to listen, the Professor talked for a five minutes and
then asked us what we remembered from what he said. Talk about humbling, I
just concentrated on hearing him and paying attention but not on actually
listening to him. How many times does this happen in our Student Ministries,
when our own youth tell us things that are occurring in their lives, yet while
we focus on hearing them we are not listening. We as youth leaders spend a
great deal of time working on our programs or on building effective student
ministries. We sometimes neglect our priority to the students we serve. I feel
this is an aspect we have neglected, we try to be cutting edge and relevant
then miss out on the key ingredient, relationships!
How
many of you have used the phrases “How are you?” or “What’s going
on?”, of course we all have, but are they used as statements or questions?
When
I decided to sit down and work through this, I thought why not do this study
to help encourage other youth workers and pastors. I am not trying to say this
is an epidemic but many of the youth pastors I know and have worked alongside
have this particular strength. As the leaders of our youth, I feel we need to
invest in their lives, find out their likes, dislikes, what causes them pain,
what brings them joy and share that you are there to listen to them. That is a
priority. While writing this, I also confess that I am personally working on
this myself and with my leaders. I want the youth in our Student Ministry at
Oakridge Bible Chapel to know that when they need someone to talk to, not for
advice necessarily but to listen, the leadership will be there for them. My
prayer is that God gives me the ears to listen not only to Him, but to others
as well.
I
remember my early days in youth ministry, I wanted to be the one to solve
everyone’s problems, and I wanted to be the one people came to for advice
and prayer. I was humbled on a few occasions when I became spiritually
arrogant to counseling. Youth would come to my office and ask to talk and when
I heard what they were saying in my mind I tried to find the right words to
say, the right passage to read. When I heard them I quickly realized I had not
been listening to them, I had been paying way too much attention to my
response then their words. Youth do not have to ask to talk to get the right
advice back; they may need someone to just talk to.
Yes
there is a difference between listening to someone and hearing someone.
If
you are married, you have probably been accused by your spouse of hearing him
or her, but not actually listening to them? I have. It is not enough to hear
someone when they are talking to you, but you need to listen to them, gauge
their emotions and expressions as they talk.
On
a number of occasions through His ministry Jesus took time to listen to people
when they came to Him. He did not see it being adequate to just hear them and
dismiss them with a word of wisdom, but to invest time into listening to them.
I
encourage you to take a look at yourself, at your leadership and see if in
fact your ministry is relationship based. This is such an important topic and
has been on my heart for some time and I thank you for taking the time to read
this and I hope and pray I have encouraged you
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Don Bennett,
Youth Pastor, Oakridge Bible Chapel; Phone (905) 849-1196, Cellular (905) 617-7526
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